Announcing charges in a case that has drawn national attention, police say 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot to death by two reputed gang members who were bent on retaliation for a shooting last summer and mistook the group of teens she was with for rivals.
Michael Ward, 18, and Kenneth Williams, 20, are charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm in the attack that also left two other teens wounded in Harsh Park late last month, about a mile from President Barack Obama's Kenwood home.
Ward, of the 3900 block of South Lake Park Avenue, told police the shooting was in retaliation for Williams getting wounded last July on the South Side, according to Superintendent Garry McCarthy.
Williams, of the 300 block of West 59th Street, had been shot July 12 near Pershing Road and Lake Park Avenue, police said. But he refused to sign a complaint against those suspected in the attack, McCarthy said.
Williams and Ward targeted Hadiya and other teens in the park Jan. 29 because they believed, mistakenly, they were members of the gang responsible for the shooting, he said. Ward fired the gun, police said.
Hours after Hadiya's funeral, attended by first lady Michelle Obama, police stopped Ward and Williams as they were on their way in separate cars to a strip club in Harvey Saturday night, McCarthy said at a news conference at Area Central police headquarters this evening.
Hearing news of the charges, Hadiya's father Nathaniel Pendleton said this is the first time since the shooting he's had a "legitimate" smile on his face.
"I'm ecstatic that they found the two guys," he told the Tribune by phone from a Washington, D.C. restaurant, where he was with his wife, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton, and other relatives. "(I'm) thanking God that these two guys are off the streets, so that this doesn't happen to another innocent person."
Pendleton and his family were in the nation's capital to be guests of Obama during the State of the Union address Tuesday night.
Still, Pendleton said true closure won't come until the men are convicted. "Right now, I can say to you that the healing can start," he said.
Hadiya was shot in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park, about a mile north of President Barack Obama's Kenwood neighborhood home on the South Side. Her slaying took place a little more than a week after the honor student performed with the King College Prep band in Washington during inauguration festivities.
The shooting in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald Avenue happened after classes were dismissed for the day during finals week at King. Hadiya, a sophomore at King, was at the park with a group of teens, primarily other students from the school, when a gunman climbed over a fence, ran to the group and started firing, police have said.
The shooter escaped in what has been described as a white Nissan vehicle, possibly driven by a getaway driver.
While police and neighbors have generally described Harsh Park and its immediate surroundings as safe, there has been an internal gang conflict brewing in the area between factions of the Gangster Disciples, police said.
The playground where Hadiya was shot was the setting for an amateur rap video posted to YouTube. The video, which also highlights the intersection at South Oakenwald and East 44th Place, uses the moniker of a local gang in an opening credit and features a rapper shown leaving the Cook County Jail, then threatening to shoot down his foes.
The video ends at a house party with a smiling teenage girl flashing gang signs at the camera.
Ward and Williams are members of the Gangster Disciples, sources said.
Ward pleaded guilty early last year in a 2011 aggravated unlawful use of a weapon case and was given two years probation, according to court records. After an arrest on criminal trespass to a vehicle last summer, he was held without bond for a few weeks, but was released after a Sept. 9, 2012, hearing.
Williams was arrested on a misdemeanor retail theft charge in October 2011, but the charge was dismissed.
Tribune reporter Carlos Sadovi contributed to this story.
tlighty@tribune.com
jgorner@tribune.com
Jdelgado@tribune.com
Slain teen's dad: 'The healing can start' after 2 charged with murder
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